


Flight

by ZedElla (Leviarty)



Series: The Story of Lorne [2]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Related, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Non-Explicit Sex, Sex in Space, Space Flight
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-01
Updated: 2015-08-01
Packaged: 2018-04-12 08:18:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4472051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leviarty/pseuds/ZedElla
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He was certain he was friends with the two biggest fucking nerds in the galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Flight

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during the Siege/Intruder, and the in-between stuff

Lorne had seen the footage, knew that, though the Atlantis mission had survived, things had gone totally FUBAR. He also knew that they’d been picking people to send to Atlantis from the moment they found the ZPM, though it was only about five minutes before the distress call came in.

“You know, I’m surprised at you,” General O’Neill said, calling him into his office. “I expected you to be riding me every waking moment about joining the Atlantis expedition.”

“Well, sir, I thought I’d made myself pretty clear last year.”

“You thought right. Your name was one of the first on the list. I still don’t have a new military commander picked out, but I know Major Lorne will be there.”

“Yes, sir,” Lorne said, a small smile forming on his face.

“Most people there is some discussion. I make sure they understand the risks, make sure they know they’ll be separated from their families for a minimum of one year before transfer will be possible. But I’m guessing you know all that?”

“Yes, sir.”

O’Neill handed him a stack of paper. “The Daedalus departs in four days. Have this back to me before then. Pack a bag, Major, you’re going to Pegasus.”

 

The four day journey on the Daedalus feels like the longest trip in his life, and more than once he found himself wishing he’d been in the group to go through the gate, though he knew that was only for the Marines and their heavy artillery. Still, he found the time aboard the Daedalus to be tedious at best; he wasn’t technically assigned to anything, merely a passenger.

He knocked on the door of a Marine when the anxiety started to eat away at him. He didn’t dislike Marines, most of the time he very much appreciated their presence, he just found that most of them didn’t provide good company.

A woman opened the door in only a shirt and underwear. Leave it to Cadman to be so brazen aboard a military vessel.

She was one of the few Marines he actually liked, when she wasn’t terrifying him with her intimate knowledge of explosives. It helped that she was probably the only one he’d met who knew how to play chess. And a good game could keep his mind off things for at least a couple hours.

“Bored already, Major?” she asked, inviting him in. She gave her butt a little wiggle as she walked across the room, grinning over her shoulder. He’s pretty sure she only does this because she knows he isn’t interested.

“Out of my mind.”

As promised, she fished a chess set out of her desk and sat down across from him to play.

 

“I should have known it was you making the wild kamikaze run, Sheppard,” he said, running into him in the hall.

“Lorne, you made it,” he said, reaching out to shake his hand. There was a smile on his face, but it was forced. He thought it might have looked different if Sheppard weren’t so distracted by the sacrifice he’d almost made, by the hive ship still out there, by the need to get back to Atlantis.

 

Lorne didn’t really get to appreciate the city until the middle of the night after the conflict was over. It really was incredible; he thought he could just wander the halls for days without end. It was strange though, having control over lights and doors without having to touch them, or even really thing about them.

“You busy?” Sheppard asked.

“Just exploring your fair city. Why?”

“Come with me,” he said, in a way that sounded not unlike an invitation to have sex in some secluded but beautiful part of the city.

That guess was wrong, but the reality was just as good.

“These are the puddle jumpers?”

Sheppard nodded. “Technically, everyone is supposed to have three successful flights before they’re allowed to go solo, but I figure it’s a skill you’ll need. In case something goes wrong while I’m away.”

“You excited to return to Earth?”

John thought about it for a moment. “Not as much as you might think.” And, okay, Lorne got that; it wasn’t like Sheppard’s last few years on Earth had been exactly stellar.

“Also, you should know I’m leaving you in charge of the military contingent.”

“What?” It made little sense to leave someone new in charge, even if he did have some command experience.

“With Everett down and my second in command out, you’re the ranking officer. Unless you think I should leave a sergeant in charge. With ‘Gate travel kept to a minimum, it should be a piece of cake – keep the Marines out of trouble, stay out of the way of the scientists, do what Teyla says.”

“Sounds like a walk in a wraith-infested park.”

John smiled. “Alright, let’s get in the air.” He turned in the copilot’s seat, facing the hud. “It’s probably easier than anything you’ve ever flown. It mostly listens to your thoughts. Think about our immediate surroundings.”

Evan did, and a map appeared on the hud, showing their position in relation to the tower and other jumpers.

“Alright, now use the maneuvering thrusters to guide us out of this parking space and into the center of the bay.”

Evan thought there had to be more to it than that, that he needed to have a basic understanding of the controls – which looked completely foreign to him – to even think about moving it, but the jumper inched forward with ease. “Huh. That’s different, isn’t it.”

“See, easy.” He tapped his earpiece. “Control room, this is Jumper two, request permission to depart?”

“You’re clear, Jumper two,” Chuck’s voice replied. “Have fun.”

He turned his attention back to Lorne. “Go straight up. The doors will open when they sense you.”

Within moments, they were outside.

“And feel free to deploy the drive pods whenever you’re ready to take it up a notch.”

The moment the though crossed his mind, he felt the Jumper lurch, almost imperceptibly, and then they shot forward.

“How fast are we going?” Evan asked. The display changed to show their speed and altitude. “Damn, the inertial dampeners in this thing are incredible.”

“Would you believe I almost miss feeling G’s?”

Something from the vicinity of the copilot’s seat began beeping.

“What is that?” Lorne asked. The display changed again, this time to show a detailed diagram of the jumper itself, with the left drivepod flashing red.

“Drive pod malfunction. We should get back to Atlantis.”

Lorne panicked a little, knowing, from experience, that it was damn near impossible to flying a plane with only one wing. Flying an unbalanced jumper wasn’t nearly as troubling, he realized quickly. He disengaged the working drivepod, then used maneuvering thrusters to orient them toward the city. Using the drivepod, he was able to set them on a shaky course toward home.

Sheppard tapped something on his side, and the left pod came back on line. “Good job,” he said, smiling. “You don’t have to keep going to Atlantis. Feel free to go wherever.”

“That was a test?”

“Relax, I do this with all of my pilots. You passed with flying colors. You’re a natural.”

“Oh?”

“I should mention that results prior to now have been mediocre at best, seeing that all of my pilots are actually scientists who had never been in a cockpit in their lives. I have to test them on dozens of possible problems, even if they’re only emergency pilots. I’m not overly concerned with your ability to solve problems under pressure, I just need to know that you’ve got a handle on the controls.”

“No need to play favorites, Major. Subject me to all your tests.”

“I can think of better uses of time. How’s about we settle into a low orbit.”

Evan pointed them at the sky, pushing upward until the display indicated that they were high enough to not fall back down.

Suddenly Sheppard was kissing him, and that sneaking suspicion he’d had earlier was apparently not so wrong – they were having sex somewhere secluded with an incredible view. He just hadn’t expected to it to be in space. It wasn’t something he’d ever considered before – F-302’s were exactly spacious enough to move around in – but he found himself wondering if this kind of thing happened often in Atlantis; did people rent out Jumpers to have sex in orbit? Were many of the Lantean’s members of the hundred mile high club?

“I bet you do this with all your pilot’s too,” he said, grinning as John lowered them to the ground. It wasn’t nearly as uncomfortable as he might have expected.

“Only the pretty ones.”

 

Atlantis senior staff left a few days later – Earth had given them the time to get a replacement command in order, and maybe that time was also to make sure shit wasn’t going to hit the fan again.

If Evan was being honest with himself, he was more than a little concerned. He had read the reports, knew that things went wrong often, even if there was seldom gate-travel.

 

As it turned out, Sheppard’s team was a lot like SG-1 in that bad things only ever seemed to happen to them. In the nearly four weeks that the senior staff was back on Earth, they encountered exactly one crisis: a plant retrieved from M83-989 weeks prior had started to grow a bit out of hand. It took over the main botany lab, but that wasn’t where the problem came in. The problem happened when they tried to burn it – which was successful in that it effectively destroyed the plant, but also the plant was apparently the Pegasus version of marijuana. The fumes were in the ventilation, and before anyone knew it, the whole of Atlantis had a case of the munchies. Later, when John found out, he didn’t stop laughing for hours. Even Dr. Weir had looked more than a little amused.

Most of the time he sat in his office – which was really just a small room off the Control Room  that someone had decided to shove a couple desks into. He caught up on mission reports he’d missed, sifted through the translated portions of the Ancient Database, and made a list of planets the looked worth exploring, according to Teyla’s knowledge and 10000 year old data. Occasionally they sent probes to planets with no information.

“I’d like to visit P3M-736,” David said over lunch one day.

“Which one is that?” Lorne asked, his mouth full of something that resembled was potato, but was decidedly _not_ a potato.

“A probe was sent three days ago. It appears unpopulated, likely due to the extremely high temperatures during the day.”

“So why do you want to go there?”

“Well I hardly care about people.”

Evan snorted. That much was obvious.

“I’m more interested in the plants. Probe readings show that the planet is quite inhospitable, with very little atmosphere protecting it, yet plants seem to be thriving. I’d like to know why.”

“Didn’t you just say it’s inhospitable?”

“It seems bearable at night, so long as we do all our exploring before the sun comes up, I don’t see any problems arising.”

“Hmm. Well, you know gate-travel is suspended until the bosses return, but I’ll put it at the top of my list.”

“Thank you, Major.” They returned to eating silently for a few minutes before Parrish asked “Have you given any thought to who will be on your team.”

“Certainly not you,” Lorne said, knowing this couldn’t possibly be what he was hinting at.

“Of course not. I have no interest in gallivanting around the galaxy like Dr. McKay. I am perfectly happy with soil and plant samples, except in extraordinary cases. I was only curious.”

“Then the answer is no, I haven’t given it a lot of thought. I’ve looked through some personnel files, but I am nowhere near reaching a decision.”

“Hiya boys,” Lt. Cadman said, sitting down to Evan’s right. “Anything interesting to share? Discover more pot plants, Doctor?”

David shook his head.

“Well let me know if you do. I’ve got an awesome brownie recipe. It’s a shame we didn’t realize what it was before the Major here decided to torch it.”

“Do you know what happened last time the SGC brought in an invasive plant?” Lorne asked, somewhat defensively.

“I know they didn’t all end up stoned out of their minds,” she said, grinning maniacally.

“Perhaps Lt. Cadman should be on your team,” David suggested.

Both shook their heads. “Not a good idea,” Lorne said.

“Why not? You get along quite well. Is it not good to have friends on the same team? Major Sheppard is friends with his team.”

“That’s not the problem,” Lorne said.

“The SGC generally frowns on people being on the same team if they’re in a sexual relationship.”

Parrish frowned. “But you’re not…”

“No,” Lorne confirmed. “But damn near everyone things we are.”

“And I’m content to keep it that way,” Cadman said. It took a moment for Parrish to catch up, but when he did, he realized that the Lieutenant was a much better friend than he’d initially believed. She let everyone believe what they wanted about the two of them so that Lorne’s sexuality never came into question.

He smiled and returned to his food. He didn’t think he’d ever had a friend that good before.

“Someone mentioned that there is a screening room in this place, and I brought all three Harry Potter movies. Anyone game?” Cadman asked.

“Excellent! I have yet to see the third one,” Parrish said.

Evan rolled his eyes. He was certain he was friends with the two biggest fucking nerds in the galaxy.

He wouldn’t have it any other way.


End file.
